Product Description

When police scientist Barry Allen is struck by lightning and doused with chemicals he discovers that he has become the fastest man alive able to move at nearly the speed of sound. The complete 1990-1991 tv series is contained in this 6 DVD box set.System Requirements:Running Time: 1088 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS Rating: PG UPC: 012569716513 Manufacturer No: 71651

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10570 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 2006-01-10
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Number of discs: 6
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 1088 minutes

Features

• When police scientist Barry Allen is struck by lightning and doused with chemicals, he discovers that he has become the fastest man alive, able to move at nearly the speed of sound. The complete 1990-1991 tv series is contained in this 6 DVD box set. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION Rating: NR Age: 012569716513 UPC: 012569716513 Manufacturer No: 71651

Amazon.com
One of the more exciting and atmospheric TV adaptations of a popular comic book series, The Flash benefited from terrific special effects, but lasted only a single year on its network in 1990. The series stuck to the Scarlet Speedster's origins: police scientist Barry Allen (John Wesley Shipp) is struck by lightning during an experiment, and chemicals splashed on him during the accident give him the ability to move at incredible speeds (note: hardcore comic fans know that this is the origin for the '60s version of the Flash, not his WWII-era identity). The series partnered him with an attractive fellow scientist (Amanda Pays) who assists Barry in his crime-fighting pursuits. Where the show deviated from its source material was its choice of combatants for the Flash--episodes focused on decidedly human villains, like corrupt officials ("Watching the Detectives") and mobsters (Michael Nader played ex-cop turned hood Nicholas Pike in two episodes, including the pilot), and didn't pull in the comic's excellent "rogues' gallery" until the end of the season, when the Trickster (Mark Hamill, who appears in two episodes), Captain Cold (Michael Champion), Mirror Master (David Cassidy!), and a sort-of Reverse-Flash (in the episode "Twin Streaks") made appearances. Sadly, these appearances were too little, too late for the series, which struggled with a high per-episode price tag and a fluctuating time slot (as well as frequent breaking coverage of the Gulf War). But for the Flash faithful, the six-disc set compiles its entire 21-episode run, including the 90-minute pilot. Unfortunately, no extras are included. --Paul Gaita

Notice regarding The Flash: The Complete Series DVD set:
Warner Home Video is advising consumers who purchased The Flash: The Complete Series DVD that Disc 1 may be defective. In particular, the pilot episode may be skipping and/or freezing at approximately 1 hr 31 minutes.

For any consumer who is experiencing this problem with Disc 1 and needs to obtain a replacement disc, please contact Warner Home Video at 1-800-891-1311 so that a self-addressed stamped envelope can be sent to you for return of your current Disc 1. Please note that the replacement Disc 1 will be available after January 30, 2006.

Customer Reviews

WooHoo! Can't wait!
One of television's overlooked gems! This show is yet another example of a network killing a promising offering by not letting it find an audience.

It was 1990. Pop culture was buzzing from the blockbuster success of Tim Burton's Batman. Star Trek: TNG was in its glory years. (X-Files and Lois and Clark were still three years off). CBS introduced this show in the fall. No problem, right? WRONG! CBS at the time had the rights to postseason baseball, and as a result, The Flash pinballed around the schedule, rarely appearing for consecutive weeks in the same time slot. It also didn't help that it was up against The Simpsons for part of its run. If they had waited until after baseball and parked this thing on a Friday night for a couple of years (ala Fox and The X-Files) it would have hit.

But alas, it was not to be. Even the head of CBS (Jeff Sagansky at the time, if memory serves) later apologized to John Wesley Shipp for mishandling the show. The viewing public mostly missed out on this top-shelf superhero adaptation which was faithful enough for the comic geeks (that'd be me), yet accessible enough for the casual viewer.

John Wesley Shipp played the character perfectly. Amanda Pays (of the also ahead-of-its-time Max Headroom) was a delight. Guests to look for: Richard Belzer, Mark Hamill, Jeri Ryan, Jeffry Combs. My favorite guest: the ever-reliable Jason Bernard as "The Nightshade." Watch his episodes, and you'll see how the creators of Batman: The Animated Series used Nightshade as an inspiration for "The Grey Ghost."

With Smallville, the Spiderman movies, and Batman Begins really showing us how a superhero might fit into the "real" world, you'll be amazed at how ahead of its time this series was. I think it's safe to say that until the debut of Smallville, The Flash was the best live-action superhero adaptation ever put on television. And if you're going to judge on faithfulness to source material, The Flash is still #1.

Life in the Fast Lane
From the pages of DC Comics, the Scarlet Speedster dashes to the rescue in the live-action adventure series "The Flash". A freak laboratory accident gives police scientist Barry Allen (John Wesley Shipp, Dawson's Creek) the ability to move at incredible speeds. With the help of a fellow research scientist (Amanda Pays, Max Headroom), the fastest man alive known as the Flash uses his powers to clean up the streets of Central City from menacing criminals like the Trickster, Captain Cold, Mirror Master and much more. "The Flash" first aired on CBS in 1990. Due to strong network competition and constant preemptions of breaking Gulf War news coverage, the live-action series recieved weak ratings and only lasted one season. Despite its short-lived run, "The Flash" was a well produced adaptation of the popular comic book character. The series features some worthy storylines, cool visual effects and a great music score. It also includes guest stars like Richard Beltzer (Law & Order: SVU), Gloria Reuben (ER), David Cassidy (The Partridge Family), Jeri Ryan (Boston Public), Bryan Cranston (Malcolm in the Middle), Angela Bassett (The Score) and Mark Hamill (Star Wars).

Fans who have waited for the DVD release of the live-action DC Comics series will be somewhat disappointed with "The Flash: The Complete Series" 6-Disc Box Set. All 21 episodes are presented in their original full screen format. Its picture quality is simple but reasonably clear. Its 2.0 Dolby Digital sound is rather enjoyable. Unfortunately, this 6-Disc set doesn't include supplemental extras. Despite its unimpressive presentation, "The Flash" is a fine addition to any comic book fan's DVD collection and receives a "B-".

DVD has defects and Warner Bros admits it !
DO NOT BUY THIS DVD SET RIGHT NOW...the first disc in the set WILL NOT play the entire pilot episode, and even Warner Bros admits it. Read on and you'll see who I talked too at Warner Bros about this !!!

I'm a huge fan of The Flash. Thus, I pre-ordered the set back in December and got it on January 11th. Kudos to Amazon for being so quick about getting it to me. Disc # 1, at 1 hr and 31 minutes into the Pilot episode, has problems. It actually freezes and locks-up my Philips DVP-642 dvd player I got here about 2 months ago. The only disc that player has a had a problem with! I ran a check on the disc 1 of that set with one of Nero's tools (software for burning) and it says that the file "VTS_01_4.VOB" is bad and that 1.82% of the disc is unreadable. If you have disc 1 and Nero, you might want to run a "file scan" and "surface scan" too. I suspect that either the media used to create the sets is bad, or the duplication equipment to create the sets.

In any case, on Sunday January 22nd at 10PM, I went online to www.amazon.com/returns there's a "Contact" link there, that says "Call Now". I figured for grins I'd click on it, and in about 2 seconds my phone rang. I explained the issue and within 2 days I had my 2nd set (bravo to Amazon cust. svc...wow!).

Ultimately, I found that the 2nd set had the same exact error on the 1st disc. I fast forwarded to 1 hr 31 min on the disc, and it locks-up my Philips dvd player, gets the dvd drive spinning endlessly in a loop, requiring the dvd player be unpowered to stop that. I ran the Nero check again, file "VTS_01_4.VOB" on the disc comes back as "read error" and again, exactly 1.82% of the disc tests as "unreadable" with Nero.

With 2 sets of this in a row bad, and the same error at the same exact spot, one can't blame Amazon. Thus I suspected Warner Bros. might have to recall this entire series, and/or fire the company responsible for creating the sets, as I believe there to be a major quality control issue that should've been caught, before this set hit retailers shelves.

UPDATE: Every year for over 10 yrs I kept hoping this series would be released, and I've waited too long for this series to come out, to let stupid playback issues go unresolved. So I called some lame Warner Bros cust. svc. number in Tampa, FL (800-364-6928) and they didn't know what to do about this. Next, I called Warner Bros in CA. (1-818-954-6000) about the issues everyone here, including myself, has with the disks in this set. I was initially ignored, so I found a website with email addresses for all the big shots at Warner (CEO, Pres, VP's, etc). I emailed them all about the issue, pointed them to the reviews here on Amazon with complaints about dvd playback, included screenshots of my test results, and Sherri Bogard (Sherri.Bogard@warnerbros.com) who handles "Defective DVD" issues for "Warner Home Video" emailed me within (2) hours stating:

"Warner Home Video is in the process of setting up a return program for this specific title (yes, we will be fixing the disc). Right now I do not have an estimated time frame, but as soon as I do, I will let you know".

I think that's about as close too a subtle admission of "yep, it doesn't work, we screwed up, and QC should've caught it before it hit retailers shelves" as any of us can hope for ;-)

You'd think WB would have some $8-$10/hr kid who sits in a room full of various dvd players in their offices, pops in discs one after another, and does nothing but look for playback/freezing issues on stuff like this, before its released. Or at least they have some kind of software or equipment to scan the disk. I now suspect they have neither, or they would've caught this. Hint to Warner Bros...have a room full of PC's with DVD burners in them, install Nero, and use the Nero tool called "CD Check". If WB had, they would've caught this!

If you own this set and you're frustrated about the "bad media" WB allowed this to be burned too, you might want to email Sherri and put your name on what's likely to become a long list of people like myself, needing a replacement for at least Disc 1. In the meantime, I'm going to do software tests on "file" and "surface structure" of the other disks in this set.